Trade union revitalisation, the servicing and organising models of trade unionism

Yvonne Rueckert and Steve Williams

Chapter 32 in Theories and Concepts in Work and Employment Relations, 2025, pp 277-286 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explains, and provides an overview of, the concept of trade union ‘revitalisation’, sometimes referred to as ‘renewal’, focusing on the ‘servicing’ and ‘organising’ models of trade unionism. The question of revitalisation attracted considerable attention in an era of diminishing trade union membership and power, capturing the responses of unions to the difficulties they were experiencing and for the purposes of reversing their decline and reasserting their power. The servicing model of trade unionism holds that the principal function of a union is to provide its members with representational services, including advice and support in resolving problems at work, as well as collective bargaining. In contrast, the organising model represents an approach to revitalisation that is concerned with efforts by unions to extend their membership constituencies into new areas, through proactive, expansionary and innovative recruitment initiatives, generally involving workers themselves and sometimes characterised by grassroots activism. The chapter identifies thematic developments relating to union revitalisation and how it has been conceptualised, and makes specific reference to illuminating how the servicing and organising models operate, emphasising the variation that characterises the latter. Both servicing unionism and organising unionism have been subject to critique in their own right; however, a general conceptual problem concerns the difficulty evident in distinguishing between the servicing and organising models of trade unionism in practice. The chapter ends by highlighting three areas – the changing nature of employment, comparative analysis and the implications of new digital technologies – where further work on understanding union revitalisation is imperative.

Keywords: Organising unionism; Servicing unionism; Trade unions; Trade union renewal; Trade union revitalisation; Trade union strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316199
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